Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor joined other faith leaders in a walk and rally in the centre of London on Thursday 24 July 2008 to challenge governments across the world to reach targets on tackling poverty.

The mass walk from Whitehall ended at Lambeth Palace where the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, called for a renewed effort in the build-up to the UN Summit in September to fulfil the promises made by world leaders to halve world poverty by 2015.

The Cardinal said: “It is our Christian calling to help the poor and marginalised. Earlier this year I was greatly moved in Southern Africa at the scale of the poverty, sickness and disease that so may people endure. While the Church is at the forefront of working with those who suffer, this is a challenge for the entire international community

“We must continue to put pressure on those in power to help end poverty across the world. We have the means to address this terrible situation but promises made by governments must be kept and that is why I have joined my fellow faith leaders today to make this call to address global poverty.”

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has called a UN Summit on 25 September to review progress on the financial commitments necessary to realise the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The UN’s most recent update on the MDGs showed that while real progress towards some of the targets has been made, the goals in crucial areas such as education and maternal mortality are decades behind schedule in many countries.